.svg)
Amazon recently announced that Prime Day 2026 will take place from June 23rd to 26th, marking an earlier-than-usual start to the summer promotional season. While Prime Day itself is primarily an online event, retailers with a significant brick-and-mortar presence often join the fray with competing sales, either during Amazon's event or in the lead-up to Fourth of July promotions. So what does retail foot traffic reveal about the state of the consumer heading into this key shopping period? We dove into the data to find out.
Despite ongoing headwinds, foot traffic to major retail chains for the first five months of the year stayed in positive territory relative to 2025, a notable showing given the macroeconomic uncertainty weighing on consumer sentiment. And even though the pace of growth has cooled since March – likely due in part to the sharp increase in gas prices – the direction never turned negative.
That consistency matters heading into Prime Day. Even as growth moderated through the spring, audiences continued to choose physical retail, suggesting that in-store visits are holding up rather than ceding ground to online channels. For retailers planning competing summer promotions, the steady baseline of positive year-over-year (YoY) traffic suggests that demand is present, and the opportunity lies in converting resilient visit volume into stronger spend during the promotional window.
Segmenting consumer traffic by driving distance shows that even the most acute headwind facing consumers right now – elevated gas prices – has done little to fundamentally alter shopping behavior. Even though longer-distance visits pulled back sharply in March with the onset of the gas price hike, the retreat proved short-lived – by April, every distance band had returned to positive growth, and the recovery held into May.
The quick rebound suggests that the March pullback in longer drives was largely temporary and did not mark a lasting shift toward online shopping. Consumers remain willing to make longer trips to stores – a healthy signal of shopping intent heading into the summer promotional season. And with gas prices now beginning to ease, the conditions look even more favorable for offline retailers as the promotional season approaches.
Zooming in on weekly visits to major retailers, however, reveals a more volatile, retailer-specific picture beneath the steady monthly averages.
The biggest distinction is between retailers entering the summer from a position of strength and those looking for a boost. Costco, Target, and (to a slightly lesser effect) Best Buy maintained year-over-year traffic gains throughout the spring – suggesting that, for these retailers, promotional events are more likely to amplify existing momentum than to create it.
Meanwhile, Walmart's traffic in recent weeks remained largely in line with last year, potentially reflecting continued pressure on its more value-oriented customer base – making the upcoming promotional events an important opportunity to reignite growth.
Home Depot and Lowe's fall somewhere in between. Both have shown signs of improvement after a prolonged slowdown, making the July 4th period an important test of whether that recovery can continue.
Consumer sentiment remains under pressure ahead of the early summer promotional events, but foot traffic data suggests that shoppers have not materially pulled back from physical stores. The resilience of longer-distance visits, combined with easing gas prices and generally positive traffic trends, points to a consumer who is becoming more selective rather than disengaged.
As retailers roll out competing promotions over the coming weeks, the key question will be where they choose to spend. Retailers already generating traffic momentum appear well positioned to capitalize on the season, while those facing softer visitation trends will be looking to promotions to reaccelerate growth.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor
Perhaps the nicest gift you can give a parent is a meal they don't have to cook – complete with cloth napkins, quality family time, and no dishes to clean afterward. That's why Mother's Day and Father's Day consistently deliver some of the biggest traffic surges of the year for full-service restaurants (FSRs).
But with fuel prices still elevated and consumers continuing to watch their spending, will families still splurge on dining out this Father's Day, or will some opt for lower-cost alternatives? Which restaurant chains stand to benefit the most from the holiday – and where might diners find a quieter table if they're hoping to avoid the crowds?
Mother's Day and Father's Day have long ranked among the restaurant industry's most important occasions – and Mother's Day this year was no exception.
On May 10th, 2026, visits to full-service restaurants surged 56.0% above the average Sunday, while rising 1.5% year over year compared to Mother's Day 2025. Diners also spent more time at restaurants, with average dwell time climbing 12.8% above a typical Sunday – suggesting longer celebrations and potentially larger checks.
Limited-service restaurants, meanwhile, saw visits dip slightly below their typical Sunday baseline – suggesting that consumers weren't trading down. Even amid economic uncertainty, families appeared willing to pay a premium for the experience of celebrating Mom with a sit-down meal. And with Mother's Day and Father's Day consistently ranking among the busiest days of the year for full-service restaurants, Mother's Day's strong performance bodes well for another successful Father's Day season.
Sunday Visits to Full-Service and Limited-Service Restaurants vs. the 12-Month Sunday Average
FSR Visits on Mother’s Day 2026 vs. Mother’s Day 2025
Mother’s Day vs. 12-Month Sunday Average (FSR)
Father’s Day vs. 12-Month Sunday Average (FSR)
On a typical Sunday, Texas Roadhouse is already the nation's most-visited full-service restaurant chain, capturing 7.9% of FSR visits. Chili's follows at 7.1%, while Olive Garden captures 6.5%.
Mother's Day reshuffles the leaderboard somewhat. Both Texas Roadhouse and Olive Garden gain meaningful share as families gather for celebratory meals, with Texas Roadhouse narrowly maintaining its lead. On Mother's Day 2026, Texas Roadhouse captured 9.2% of FSR visits, while Olive Garden followed closely at 8.8%.
Father's Day, however, is a very different story. Last year, Texas Roadhouse captured 9.4% of all full-service restaurant visits, while both Chili's (5.8%) and Olive Garden (5.7%) lagged far behind. Steak, it seems, is exceptionally dad-coded.
The flip side, of course, is that Father's Day may be one of the quieter times to enjoy a plate of unlimited breadsticks. As families flock to steakhouses to celebrate Dad, Olive Garden's share of visits falls well below its typical Sunday levels, making it a surprisingly uncrowded alternative for diners looking to avoid the holiday rush.
Parents, it turns out, are very good for the restaurant business. And if Mother's Day is any indication, June 21st is poised to provide another meaningful boost for the segment this year – giving operators another opportunity to capitalize on one of the category's most reliable traffic-driving occasions.
To keep on top of full-service dining trends, follow Placer.ai/anchor.
Like so many tourism hot spots, the pandemic brought visitation to Las Vegas to a near halt. Since then, the city has invested heavily in several new entertainment and sports venues – redefining Las Vegas for the post-pandemic era.
Yet standing in the way of Las Vegas’ next tourism boom is a growing challenge: affordability. For many travelers, a Vegas getaway has become increasingly out of reach, starting with the rising cost of staying on the iconic Strip. But the Strip itself may also hold the solution. AI-powered location intelligence suggests that activations designed to bring visitors directly to the corridor can boost foot traffic and attract mainstream audiences, reinforcing the Strip’s role as a central tourism engine.
After a brief foot traffic recovery in 2021 and 2022, visits to the Strip have remained below pre-pandemic levels. But since last year, the traffic decline appears to have tapered off– signaling a fresh baseline upon which visitation can build in the months and years ahead.
While the Strip's overall foot traffic has stabilized, major pop culture moments continue to drive meaningful spikes in visitation. Across a range of major events in 2026, out-of-market traffic jumped significantly above the same-day-of-week average.
The recent BTS ARIRANG World Tour was a tourism powerhouse, as the city rolled out weeks-long activations that drove traffic beyond the performance venue and onto the Strip itself. Similarly, the EDC World Party Parade, Bruno Mars Day, and the NASCAR Cup Series Hauler Parade all served as prime examples of broader venue-based events with an on-Strip element that ignited foot traffic – a formula that could be key to Las Vegas’s next chapter of tourism growth.
Diving into the demographics of Strip visitors highlights why boosting these event-based audiences could be critical.
Since the pre-pandemic period, the Strip's everyday visitor base has become notably more affluent – likely in part due to rising costs at hotels and resorts. In January through May of 2019, the median household income (HHI) of Strip visitors was $93.2K, compared to $101.1K during the same window in 2026.
However, on nearly all of the event days analyzed – with the exception of Bruno Mars Day – the Strip’s median HHI declined, in several cases pulling back toward 2019 levels. The EDC World Party Parade drew a median HHI of $94.7K, and on BTS concert days, the median HHI on the Strip ranged from $95.9K to $97.4K.
This shows that events driving traffic to the Strip are attracting audiences that more closely reflect the broad, mass-market appeal on which Las Vegas built its identity. By attracting a broader cross-section of visitors, widely accessible on-Strip events could help rekindle both the scale and diversity of visitation that characterized the city before the pandemic.
Las Vegas has invested heavily in new sports and entertainment venues. But as the city enters its next era of tourism, maximizing the role of the Strip could be key to driving visitation, engagement, and economic activity.
For more data-driven civic storylines, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
.avif)
Retail corridors – with their orientation towards apparel flagships, aspirational brands, and dining – have not been immune to the macroeconomic pressures weighing on discretionary retail. Declining consumer sentiment and tariff uncertainty appear to have impacted visits, which decreased year-over-year (YoY) most months since September 2025. And after a relatively resilient January and February, three of the steepest YoY visit gaps of the past year came in March, April, and May 2026, as rising fuel prices added another layer of financial pressure to household budgets.
Zooming in on monthly visit duration provides further evidence that economic headwinds – and pressure at the pump in particular – are having a meaningful impact on retail corridor traffic as the year progresses.
In January and February 2026, visits of less than 30 minutes decined compared to 2025 while visits of 30 minutes or more increased. This could reflect ongoing cost-of-living concerns – with consumers shopping more deliberately, checking prices, and taking longer to decide. In addition, consumers continue to prioritize elevated retail experiences and third-places, which can be cost-effective forms of recreation while encouraging longer dwell times. These factors likely helped fuel growth in extended visits while supporting overall traffic resilience for the first two months of the year.
But since March 2026, economic uncertainty has been compounded by rising fuel prices – perhaps making driving downtown less appealing to some. As a likely consequence, visits under 30 minutes dipped further, and visits of over 30 minutes flattened or declined outright, indicating that retail corridors are seeing an overall contraction of the discretionary-oriented activity they typically depend on.
To be sure, extended visits are still the norm. The average visit to retail corridors remained above two hours throughout the first five months of 2026, as they remain ideal destinations for discovery and leisure time. That strength, alongside incremental improvements in the longest visit buckets could signal an overall visit resurgence in the months ahead.
Retail corridor visitation trends show that consumer behavior can shift quickly in response to macroeconomic conditions. While early 2026 showed signs of more intentional, third-place style visits, the current fuel price spike appears to be putting a damper on mid-to-extended length trips. For retailers and civic stakeholders, resilience may depend on enhancing the consumer experience, in-store and along the corridor, giving consumers a reason to visit – and stay a while.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
%20(1).avif)
The broader restaurant industry continues to navigate a challenging economic environment, and rising gas prices have made value perception an even more important factor for consumers in determining where – and how – they choose to eat. With fuel costs remaining elevated throughout May 2026, we turned to the latest Placer.ai Dining Index data to assess how different dining segments performed and whether these emerging trends continued to gain momentum.
Dining traffic in May 2026 painted a mixed picture for the restaurant industry. Visits to full-service chains rose year-over-year (YoY) after two consecutive months of declines, likely benefiting from both Mother's Day and a favorable calendar shift. May 2026 included five Sundays compared to four in May 2025 – a subtle but meaningful tailwind for sit-down dining. The rebound suggests that even amid a challenging economic backdrop, consumers remain willing to spend on special occasions.
At the same time, pressure continued to build in the more value-oriented dining segments. QSR visit declines widened YoY, while fast-casual traffic growth slowed. Together, these trends provide additional evidence that persistent inflation and tighter household budgets are weighing on consumer behavior – particularly among the typically value-conscious audiences of QSR and fast casual chains.
Some of the weakness in QSR traffic – and even the slowdown in fast casual growth – may be tied to shifting consumer preferences around drive-thru usage and other convenience-based ordering channels
Location intelligence reveals that sub-10-minute visits to the two limited-service segments have underperformed compared to overall visits for several months. And in May 2026, short visits to QSR chains fell sharply YoY, while short visits to fast casual chains also decreased – their first such decline of 2026. The drop in visits under 10 minutes to both segments – a duration typically associated with drive-thru, but also pickup, and delivery orders – suggests that diners are not only looking to reduce fuel consumption but are increasingly prioritizing the experience of dining out over the convenience of picking up food to go.
With summer travel season around the corner and some modest relief at the pump beginning to emerge, drive-thru traffic, for its part, could shift into a higher gear in the weeks and months ahead.
May's dining data highlights a growing divide within the restaurant industry. While consumers continue to make room for special-occasion dining, value-oriented segments face mounting challenges as economic pressures persist. And with short-duration visits declining across both QSR and fast casual chains, elevated fuel costs may be reshaping how consumers approach their favorite chains.
For the latest dining insights, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
Following five consecutive quarters of declining same-store sales, Wendy's has appointed Robert D. “Bob” Wright – fresh off a successful turnaround at Potbelly – to steer the Dublin, Ohio-based chain back to growth. Can Wright work his magic once again? We dove into the data to understand what it will take to engineer another comeback.
Wendy's appointment of Bob Wright is rooted in his success leading Potbelly through a strong post-pandemic recovery. During Wright's tenure, Potbelly outperformed the broader fast-casual segment, while Wendy's has struggled to keep pace with the QSR industry's recovery – and Wendy's is likely betting that Wright can bring a similar turnaround playbook to Wendy's.
But whether Wright can replicate his success at Potbelly depends, in part, on what's driving Wendy's current challenges.
While macroeconomic headwinds have pressured value-oriented restaurant spending, they do not fully explain Wendy’s recent traffic struggles.
Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell all attract visitors from trade areas with similar median household incomes, yet Wendy’s has been the only chain to consistently post substantially weaker same-store visit performance over the past year.
Cross-visitation data further suggests that Wendy's challenges extend beyond macroeconomic headwinds. Since 2019, Wendy's customers have become increasingly likely to visit competing restaurant chains, indicating that the brand may be losing differentiation in an increasingly crowded market.
The encouraging news for Wendy's is that the traffic data points to several areas of underlying strength. If Wendy's can reconnect with consumer segments and dayparts where it has historically demonstrated traction, it may be able to reignite growth without fundamentally reinventing the brand.
On the demographic front, AI-based location analytics suggests that Wendy's may already possess an advantage that many restaurant chains are trying to build – a meaningful connection with younger consumers. Compared to the broader QSR industry, Wendy's captured market includes a larger share of younger, nonfamily households, indicating that the brand has established a stronger foothold among Gen Z and younger millennials than many of its peers.
So rather than trying to fundamentally reshape its customer base, Wendy's may have a greater opportunity to build on an audience that is already engaging with the brand. The success of initiatives such as the SpongeBob SquarePants collaboration demonstrates how culturally relevant campaigns can translate that engagement into traffic gains, giving Wendy's a potential blueprint for strengthening its relevance with younger consumers even further.
At the same time, the chain also overindexes on older consumers, positioning it to appeal to two demographic groups that many brands struggle to reach simultaneously. This positions the brand to appeal to two demographic groups that many restaurant concepts struggle to reach simultaneously and may create opportunities across multiple dining occasions. In particular, older consumers could represent a valuable audience for breakfast, a daypart where Wendy's has historically invested heavily but has recently begun to pull back.
Indeed, Wendy's has recently allowed some franchisees to reduce breakfast hours as demand has softened across the industry. Yet the data suggests that the brand's breakfast's challenges are not solely a function of weakening consumer demand for QSR breakfast – Wendy's morning traffic has fallen substantially faster than the category as a whole, pointing to a meaningful share loss.
That dynamic – especially given the brand's overindexing among older diners – raises questions about whether further retrenchment is the right long-term strategy. Even though breakfast accounts for a relatively small share of overall visits (less than 9% of Wendy's visits take place between 6 AM and 10 AM) abandoning the daypart risks accelerating traffic declines, and it is not clear that consumers who stop visiting Wendy's for breakfast will simply shift their visits to lunch or dinner. Instead, targeted efforts to improve breakfast awareness, relevance, and differentiation could help Wendy's close one of its largest performance gaps and recapture incremental visits that might otherwise be lost to competitors.
While Wendy's challenges are real, location analytics suggest that the chain is far from starting from scratch. Between its established appeal among younger consumers, its strength with older diners, and a breakfast business that still has room to improve, Wendy's has several levers it can pull to regain momentum. If Bob Wright can apply the same combination of focus, differentiation, and disciplined execution that fueled Potbelly's turnaround, Wendy's may be better positioned for a comeback than recent traffic trends suggest.
For more data-driven dining insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
.avif)
1. Overall dining traffic is mostly flat, but growth is concentrated in specific areas.
While nationwide dining visits were nearly unchanged in early 2025, western states like Utah, Idaho, and Nevada showed moderate growth, while states in the Midwest and South, along with Washington D.C., saw declines.
2. Fine dining and coffee chains are growing through expansion, not just busier locations.
These two segments were the only ones to see an increase in total visits, but their visits-per-location actually decreased, indicating that opening new stores is the primary driver of their growth.
3. Higher-income diners are driving the growth in resilient categories.
The segments that saw visit growth—fine dining and coffee—also attracted customers with the highest median household incomes, suggesting that affluent consumers are still spending on dining despite economic headwinds.
4. Remote work continues to reshape dining habits.
The share of suburban customers at fine dining establishments has increased since 2019, while it has decreased for coffee chains. This reflects a shift towards "destination" dining closer to home and away from commute-based coffee runs.
5. Limited-service restaurants own the weekdays; full-service restaurants win the weekend.
QSR, fast casual, and coffee chains see the majority of their traffic from Monday to Friday, whereas casual and fine dining see a significant spike in visits on weekends.
6. Each dining segment dominates a specific time of day.
Consumer visits are highly predictable by the hour: coffee leads in the early morning, fast casual peaks at lunch, casual dining takes the afternoon, fine dining owns the dinner slot, and QSR captures the late-night crowd.
Overall dining visits held relatively steady in the first five months of 2025, with year-over-year (YoY) visits to the category down 0.5% for January to May 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Most of the country saw slight declines (less than 2.0%), though some states and districts experienced larger drops: Washington, D.C, saw the largest visit gap (-3.6% YoY), followed by Kansas and North Dakota (-2.9%), Arkansas (-2.8%), Missouri and Kentucky (-2.6%), Oklahoma (-2.1%), and Louisiana (-2.0%).
Still, there were several pockets of moderate dining strength, specifically in the west of the United States. January to May 2025 dining visits in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada increased 1.8% to 2.4% YoY, while the coastal states saw traffic rise 0.6% (California) to 1.2% (Washington). Vermont also saw a slight increase in dining visits (+1.9%).
Diving into visit trends by dining segment shows that fine dining and coffee saw the strongest overall visit trends, with visits to the segments up 1.3% and 2.6% YoY, respectively, between January and May 2025. But visits per location trends were negative for both segments – a decline of 0.8% YoY for fine dining and 1.8% for coffee during the period – suggesting that much of the visit strength is due to expansions rather than more crowded restaurants and coffee shops.
In contrast, full-service casual dining saw overall visits decrease by 1.5%, while visits per location remained stable (+0.2%) YoY between January and May 2025. Several casual dining chains have rightsized in the past twelve months – including Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and Outback Steakhouse – which impacted overall visit numbers. But the data seems to show that their rightsizing was effective, as the remaining locations successfully absorbed the traffic and maintained performance levels from the previous year. And the monthly data also provides much reason for optimism, with May traffic up both overall and on a visit per location basis – suggesting that the casual dining segment is well positioned for growth in the second half of 2025.
Meanwhile, QSR and fast casual chains saw similar minor visits per venue dips (-1.5% and -1.2%, respectively). At the same time, QSR also saw an overall visit dip (-0.8%) while traffic to fast casual chains increased slightly (+0.3%) – suggesting that the fast casual segment is expanding more aggressively than QSR. But the two segments decoupled somewhat in May, with overall traffic and visits per venue to fast casual chains up YoY while traffic remained flat and visits per venue fell slightly for QSR – perhaps due to the relatively greater affluence of fast casual's consumer base.
Analyzing the income levels of visitors to the various dining segments over time shows that each segment followed a slightly different trend – and the differences in visitor income may help explain some of the current traffic patterns.
The only three segments with YoY visit growth – casual dining, fine dining, and coffee – also had the highest captured market median household income (HHI). Although the median HHI in the captured market of upscale and fine dining chains fell after COVID, it has risen back steadily over time and now stands at $98.0K – slightly higher than the $97.1K median HHI between January to May 2019. This may explain the segment's resilience in the face of wider consumer headwinds. Meanwhile, the median HHI at fast casual and coffee chains has fallen slightly, perhaps due to aggressive expansions in the space – including Dave's Hot Chicken and Dutch Bros – which likely broadened the reach of the segments, driving visits up and trade area median HHI down.
Like fine dining, casual dining also saw its trade area median HHI increase slightly over time – but the segment has still been facing visit dips. This could mean that, even though consumers trading down to casual dining may have boosted the trade area median HHI for the segment, it still might not have been enough to make up for the customers lost to tighter budgets.
The QSR segment saw its trade area median HHI remain remarkably steady – and visits to the segment have also been quite consistent – staying between $70.6K and $70.9K between 2019 and 2025 – which may explain why the segment's visits remained relatively stable YoY.
Diving into the psychographic segmentation shows that, although the fine dining segment attracted visitors from the highest-income areas between January and May 2025, fast casual chains drew the highest share of visitors from suburban areas, followed by casual dining and coffee. QSR attracted the smallest share of suburban visitors, with just 30.5% of the category's captured market between January and May 2025 belonging to Spatial.ai: PersonaLive suburban segments.
But looking at the data since 2019 reveals small but significant changes in the shares of suburban audiences in some categories' captured markets. And although the percentage changes are slight, these represent hundreds of thousands of diners every year.
The data shows that shares of suburban segments in the captured markets of fine dining chains have increased, while their share in the captured market of coffee chains has decreased. The shares of suburban visitors to QSR, fast casual, and casual chains have remained relatively steady.
This may suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rise of remote and hybrid work models are still impacting consumer dining habits, benefiting destination-worthy experiences in suburban locales such as fine dining chains while reducing the necessity of daily coffee runs that were often tied to commuting and office work. Meanwhile, the stability in QSR, fast casual, and casual dining segments could indicate that these categories continue to meet consistent suburban demand for convenience and everyday dining, largely unaffected by the redistribution seen in the fine dining and coffee sectors.
Although QSR, fast casual, casual dining, fine dining, and coffee all fall under the wider dining umbrella, the data shows distinct consumer behavior patterns regarding visits to these five categories.
Limited service segments, including QSR, fast casual, and coffee tend to see higher shares of visits on weekdays, while full service segments – casual dining and fine dining – receive higher shares of weekend visits. Diving deeper shows that QSR has the largest share of weekday visits, with 72.3% of traffic coming in between Monday and Friday, followed by fast casual (69.8% of visits on weekdays) and coffee (69.4% of visits on weekdays.) Looking at trends within the work week shows that QSR receives a slightly larger visit share between Monday and Thursday compared to the other limited service segments. Meanwhile, coffee seems to receive the smallest share of Friday visits – 16.3% compared to 17.0% for fast casual and 17.2% for QSR.
On the full-service side, casual dining and fine dining chains have relatively similar shares of weekend visits (39.0% and 38.8%, respectively), but fine dining also sees an uptick of visits on Fridays (with 19.1% of weekly visits) as consumers choose to start the weekend on a festive note.
Hourly visit patterns also show variability between the segments. Coffee is the unsurprising leader of early visits, with 14.6% of visits taking place before 8 AM and, almost two-thirds (64.9%) of visits taking place before 2 PM. Fast casual leads the lunch rush (29.4% of visits between 11 AM and 2 PM), casual dining chains receive the largest share of afternoon (2 PM to 5 PM) visits, and fine dining chains receive the largest share of dinner visits, with almost 70% of visits taking place between 5 PM and 11 PM. QSR leads the late night visit share – 4.1% of visits take place between 11 PM and 5 AM – followed by casual dining chains (3.2% late night and overnight visit share), likely due to the popularity of 24-hour diners.
This suggests that each dining segment effectively "owns" a different part of the day, from the morning coffee ritual and the quick lunch break to the leisurely evening meal and late-night cravings.
An analysis of average visit duration also reveals a small but lasting shift in post-pandemic dining behavior. Between January and May 2025, the average dwell time for nearly every dining segment was shorter than during the same period in 2019. This efficiency trend is evident across limited-service categories like QSR, fast casual, and coffee shops, suggesting a continued emphasis on speed and convenience.
The one notable exception to this trend is upscale and fine dining, where the average visit duration has actually increased compared to pre-COVID levels. This may suggest that, while visits to most segments have become more transactional, consumers are treating fine dining more as an extended, deliberate experience, reinforcing its position as a destination-worthy occasion.
1. The Midwest is the only region where Black Friday retail visits outpace Super Saturday.
But several major Midwestern markets, including Chicago and Detroit, actually see higher shopper turnout on Super Saturday.
2. Holiday season demographic shifts also vary across regions.
Nationwide, electronics stores see a slight uptick in median household income (HHI) in December – yet in certain markets, electronics retailers such as Best Buy see a drop in captured market median HHI during this period.
3. Back-to-school shopping starts earliest for clothing and office supplies retailers in the South Central region, likely tied to earlier school schedules.
But back-to-school visits surge higher for these retailers in the Northeast later in the season.
4. The share of college students among back-to-school shoppers varies by region.
In August 2024, “Collegians” made up the largest share of Target’s back-to-school shopping crowd in New England, and the smallest in the West.
5. Mother’s Day drives the biggest restaurant visit spikes in the Middle Atlantic Region, while Father’s Day sees its biggest boosts in the South Atlantic states.
Mother’s Day diners also tend to travel farther to celebrate, suggesting an extra effort to treat mom.
6. Western states proved particularly responsive to McDonald’s recent Minecraft promotion.
During the week of A Minecraft Movie’s release, the promotion drove significantly higher visit spikes in the West than in the Eastern U.S.
Retailers rely on promotional events to fuel sales – from classics like Black Friday and back-to-school sales to unique limited-time offers (LTOs) and pop-culture collaborations. Yet consumer preferences and behavior can vary significantly by region, making it critical to tailor campaigns to local markets.
This report dives into the data to reveal how consumers in 2025 are responding to major retail promotions, exploring both broad regional trends and more localized market-level nuances. Where is Black Friday most popular, and which areas see a bigger turnout on Super Saturday? Where are restaurants most packed on Mother’s Day, and where on Father’s Day? Which region kicks off back-to-school shopping – and where are August shoppers most likely to be college students? And also – which part of the country went all out on McDonald’s recent Minecraft LTO?
Read on to find out.
Promotions aimed at boosting foot traffic on key holiday season milestones like Black Friday and Super Saturday are central to retailers’ strategies across industries. The day after Thanksgiving and the Saturday before Christmas typically rank among in-store retail’s busiest days, last year generating foot traffic surges of 50.1% and 56.3%, respectively, compared to a 12-month daily average. And
But a closer look at regional data shows that these promotions land differently across the country. In the Midwest, Black Friday outperformed Super Saturday last year, fueling the nation’s biggest post-Thanksgiving retail visit spike – a testament to the milestone’s strong local appeal. Meanwhile, in the Western U.S. Black Friday trailed well behind Super Saturday, though both milestones drove smaller upticks than in other regions. And in New England and the South Central states, Super Saturday achieved its biggest impact, suggesting that last-minute holiday specials may resonate especially well in that area.
Digging deeper into major Midwestern hubs shows that even within a single region, holiday promotions can produce widely different responses.
In St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis, for example, consumers followed the broader Midwestern pattern, flocking to stores on Black Friday exhibiting less enthusiasm for Super Saturday deals. By contrast, Chicago and Detroit saw Super Saturday edge ahead, with Chicago’s Black Friday peak falling below the nationwide average of 50.1%. examples highlight the power of local preferences to shape holiday campaign results.
Holiday promotions don’t just drive visit spikes; they also spark subtle but significant changes in the demographic profiles of brick-and-mortar shoppers, expanding many retailers’ audiences during peak periods. And these shifts, too, can vary widely across regions.
Outlet malls, department stores, and beauty & self-care chains, for instance, which typically attract higher-income consumers, tend to see slight declines in the median household incomes (HHI) of their visitor bases in December. This dip may be due to promotions drawing in more mid- and lower-income shoppers during the peak holiday season. Electronics stores and superstores, on the other hand, which generally serve a less affluent base, see modest upticks in median HHI in the lead-up to Christmas.
But once again, drilling further down into regional chain-level data reveals more nuanced regional patterns. Take Best Buy, a leading holiday season electronics destination. In some of the chain’s biggest, more affluent markets – including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago – the big-box retailer sees small dips in median HHI during December. But in Atlanta and Houston – also relatively affluent, but slightly less so – December saw a minor HHI uptick, hinting at a stronger holiday rush from higher-income shoppers in those cities.
Back-to-school promotions also play a pivotal role in the retail calendar, with superstores, apparel chains, office supply stores and others all vying for shopper attention. And though summer markdowns drive increased foot traffic nationwide, both the timing of these shifts and the composition of the back-to-school shopping crowd differ among regions.
Analyzing weekly fluctuations in regional foot traffic to clothing and office supplies stores shows, for example, that back-to-school shopping picks up earliest in the South Central region, likely due to earlier school start dates.
But the biggest visit peaks occur in the Northeast – with clothing retailer foot traffic surging in New England in late August, and office supplies stores seeing an even bigger surge in the Middle Atlantic region in early September. Retailers and advertisers can plan their back-to-school deals around these differences, targeting promotions to local trends.
Though K-12 families drive much of the back-to-school rush, college student shoppers also play a substantial role. And here, too, their participation varies by region.
For instance, the “Collegians” segment accounted for 2.2% of Target’s shopper base nationwide over the past year – rising to 3.0% in August 2024. But regionally, the share of “Collegians” soared as high as 4.0% in New England versus just 2.2% in the West. So while retailers in New England may choose to lean into the college vibe, those in Western states may place greater emphasis on families with children.
When it comes to dining, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are the busiest days of the year for the full-service restaurant (FSR) category, as families treat their parents to a hassle-free meal out. And eateries nationwide capitalize on this trend by offering a variety of deals and promotions that add a little extra charm (and value) to the experience.
Nationwide, Mother’s Day drives more FSR foot traffic than Father’s Day – except in parts of the Pacific Northwest, where Father’s Day traditions run especially deep. Still, the size of these holiday boosts varies substantially by region.
This year, for instance, Mother’s Day (May 11, 2025) drove the largest FSR surge in the Middle Atlantic, with the South Atlantic and Midwest not far behind. Father’s Day, by contrast, saw its biggest lift in the South Atlantic. Mother’s Day proved least resonant in the West, whereas Father’s Day had its smallest impact in New England.
Dining behavior also differs between the two occasions. Mother’s Day celebrants display a slight preference for morning FSR visits and a bigger one for afternoon visits, while Father’s Day crowds favor evenings – perhaps reflecting a preference for sports bars and later dinners with dad. Another interesting nuance: On Mother’s Day, a larger share of FSR visits originate from between 3 and 50 miles away compared to Father’s Day, suggesting that families go the extra mile – sometimes literally – to celebrate mom.
While established dates like Black Friday or Mother’s Day naturally spur promotions, brands can also craft their own moments with limited-time offers (LTOs). And much like holiday campaigns, these retailer-led events can produce varied outcomes across different regions.
Fast food restaurants, for example, have leaned heavily on limited-time offers (LTOs) and pop-culture tie-ins to fuel buzz in what remains a challenging overall market. And McDonald’s recent Minecraft promotion, launched on April 1, 2025 to coincide with the April 3 release of A Minecraft Move, shows just how impactful the practice can be.
Nationally, the Minecraft promotion (featuring offerings for both kids and adults) drove a 6.9% lift in visits during the movie’s opening week. But the impact of the promotion was far from uniform across the U.S. Many of McDonald’s Western markets – including Utah, Idaho, Nevada, California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon – recorded visit lifts above 10.0%. Meanwhile, Kentucky saw a 2.1% dip, and several other Eastern states registered modest gains below 3.0%. The McDonald’s example illustrates the power of regional tastes to shape the success of even the most creative pop-culture collabs.
Whether it’s properly timing holiday and back-to-school discounts, recognizing where Mother’s Day or Father’s Day will resonate more, or pinpointing markets that respond best to pop-culture tie-ins, the data reveals that effective promotions depend heavily on local nuances. And by analyzing regional and DMA-level trends, retailers and advertisers can craft compelling, relevant campaigns that heighten engagement where it matters most.
1. Experiential and niche retailers can deliver anchor-level traffic. At Towne East Square Mall, the addition of a Scheels in 2023 significantly increased foot traffic and long-distance travelers, while Barnes & Noble at Coronado Center in Albuquerque has become a key driver of both foot traffic and higher-spend demographics.
2. Size isn’t everything – especially for dining venues. At Glendale Galleria and Northridge Fashion Center, smaller restaurants attracted more foot traffic than some traditional anchors.
3. Refocusing on tenants’ actual traffic contributions enables a flexible anchor approach. Balancing weekend draws like Scheels with weekday favorites such as Costco or Chick-fil-A can help maintain steady visitor flow throughout the week. Similarly, onsite fitness clubs can shift traffic to earlier in the day – an opportunity to adjust store hours and capture additional morning shoppers.
4. Temporary pop-ups can form an integral part of a visit-focused anchor strategy. The Barbie Dreamhouse Living Truck Tour generates mall visit spikes well above typical Saturday levels. Operators can integrate these events into their overall anchor strategies, offering preferential terms to high-performing pop-ups.
5. New tenants can boost traffic for existing stores in similar categories. After Aldi joined Green Acres Commons in February 2020, visits to an existing BJ’s Wholesale Club trended upwards. This synergy highlights how overlapping audiences can become a strength, creating a larger overall customer base.
Malls, it seems, are cool once again. After languishing in the wake of the pandemic, shopping centers across the country are thriving – reinventing themselves as prime “third places” where people can hang out, shop, and grab a bite to eat.
One key driver behind this resurgence is a shift in how malls view their anchor tenants. While traditional mainstays like Macy’s and JCPenney still play an important role, specialized offerings – from popular eateries to fitness centers and immersive retailtainment destinations – are increasingly taking center stage. These attractions maximize the experiential value that brick-and-mortar venues can deliver, driving visits and sales for the center as a whole.
Against this backdrop, this report leverages the latest location intelligence data to explore the types of tenants that can function as mall anchors in 2025. Should mall operators still focus on general merchandisers to draw crowds, or can dining chains and more niche retailers also do the job? How important is square footage in identifying the anchor-like tenants in a shopping center? And how can a visit-focused approach help mall operators select effective anchor or anchor-like tenants – whether to fill big-box spaces or to leverage the leasing perks traditionally reserved for major large-format chains?
One of the most important functions of a mall anchor is to ensure steady visitation – providing its smaller tenants with a constant flow of potential customers. And as the role of the mall continues to evolve, analyzing the actual foot traffic impacts of different types of businesses can help identify the kinds of non-traditional anchors best suited to fulfill that purpose.
Experiential venues, for example, are particularly well-poised to serve as powerful anchors in today’s retail environment – as illustrated by the visit surge experienced by Towne East Square Mall in Wichita, KS following the addition of a Scheels in July 2023.
By blending traditional retail with immersive experiences, Scheels has emerged as a true experiential destination. And this pull has also helped the mall draw more long-distance visitors willing to travel to enjoy Scheels’ offerings. In 2024, 41.9% of the mall’s customers traveled more than 50 miles to visit, compared to 35.8% back in 2018 when Sears occupied the same lot.
Traditionally, anchors aimed to please the widest possible audiences – with department stores, big-box chains, and grocery stores leading the way. But visitation data shows that niche concepts can also deliver anchor-level traffic if they’re compelling enough to attract dedicated fans.
The experience of the Barnes & Noble at Coronado Center in Albuquerque, NM is a case in point. After being written off as all but obsolete, Barnes & Noble has staged an impressive comeback in recent years, finding success through a more curated, localized approach to book selling. And despite not being a formal anchor, the Coronado Center Barnes & Noble accounted for 7.9% of visits to the mall in 2024 – outperforming both Macy’s and JCPenney.
Year-over-year data also shows foot traffic surging at the Coronado Center Barnes & Noble, lifting overall visitation to the mall. And demographic data reveals that the bookstore draws a more affluent audience than either the center as a whole or the two department stores – attracting a crowd with more spending power.
This example also illustrates how smaller tenants can sometimes draw larger crowds. Even though Barnes & Noble occupies a smaller onsite space than either Macy’s or JCPenney, it is proving a powerful visit driver out of proportion to its physical size.
Dining chains are also adept at punching above their square footage – often attracting crowds disproportionate to their size.
Despite its relatively small footprint, for example, the In-N-Out Burger at Glendale Galleria drew an impressive 8.6% of visits to the mall complex in 2024, outpacing some of the mall’s official anchors like DICK’s Sporting Goods, Macy’s, and JCPenney. Still, the onsite Target drew even larger crowds at 14.4% of visits.
A similar pattern emerged at Northridge Fashion Center, where Porto’s Bakery and Cafe captured a notable 15.6% of visits to the complex in 2024 – more than some of the center’s traditional department stores.
These examples underscore the potential for dining chains, which typically require less space, to serve as micro-anchors by consistently attracting outsized crowds – a key consideration for mall operators looking to sustain visitor traffic.
Refocusing on tenants’ actual foot traffic contributions also opens the door to a more flexible and dynamic approach to anchor selection and management – one that considers each venue’s unique visitation patterns.
Seasonal factors, for example, can make certain anchors more powerful at specific times of the year, while different venues shine on particular days of the week.
At Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines, Iowa, for instance, Scheels and Costco each delivered just under 20.0% of the complex’s overall visits in 2024. But the two retailers’ daily patterns differed significantly: Scheels saw bigger crowds on weekends, while Costco was the primary weekday destination.
Understanding differences like these can help operators optimize their tenant mix to maintain a balanced flow of shoppers throughout the week.
Another example of the impact of differing weekday traffic patterns is offered by the impact of mall-based Chick-fil-A locations on the distribution of mall visits throughout the week.
Despite its relatively small size, Chick-fil-A draws substantial traffic to malls. And after adding Chick-fil-A locations, both Northridge and Miller Hill Malls saw meaningful drops in the share of visits to the centers taking place on Sundays – even as the wider indoor mall segment saw slight upticks.
Recognizing this trend could prompt mall operators to compensate by adding more weekend-friendly traffic drivers – or to lean into this distinction by taking additional steps to bolster the mall’s role as a go-to weekday destination.
The power of different mall traffic magnets also varies throughout the day. Increasingly, shopping centers are turning to fitness centers as experiential anchors. And since many people work out early in the morning, these gyms are having a significant impact on the distribution of mall visits across dayparts.
The addition of gyms to Northshore Mall in Peabody, MA and Jackson Crossing in Jackson, MI, for instance, led to a significant rise in visits between 7:00 AM and noon. And though the rest of the stores in these malls typically open at 10:00 or 11:00 AM, this shift presents the centers with a significant opportunity.
By adjusting opening hours to accommodate these early-morning patrons, malls can capitalize on this added traffic, driving up visits and sales for relevant tenants – especially health-focused retailers such as juice bars and sporting goods stores.
Adopting a broader, visit-focused view of anchoring also allows mall operators to apply some of the strategies typically reserved for anchors to non-conventional traffic-generating businesses, to ensure a consistent flow of traffic year-round.
Pop-up stores and events, for example, generally don’t follow the same seasonal trends as other retailers – instead, they generate short-term visit boosts during their runs, whenever in the year that may be. And a visit-focused anchor strategy can leverage some of the perks traditionally reserved for anchor tenants – such as preferential leasing terms – to complement traditional full-time anchors during slower retail periods.
The Barbie Dreamhouse Living Truck Tour is a prime example of a traffic-driving pop-up. By bringing exclusive merchandise to malls across the U.S., the truck generates plenty of buzz, drawing crowds eager to snatch up limited-edition items and immerse themselves in all things Barbie. As a result, malls hosting the tour often see significant visit spikes, with foot traffic surging well above typical Saturday levels. Well-timed pop-ups like these can help balance out traffic throughout the year, offsetting traditional slow periods.
A visit-focused approach to anchor management can also help mall operators assess the potential impact of new tenants on existing stores operating in similar categories. For example, mall owners often worry that new tenants operating in similar categories might cannibalize existing businesses. But a visit-focused anchor approach reveals that a well-chosen addition can sometimes benefit current tenants – especially if they cater to similar audiences.
In February 2020, for instance, value supermarket Aldi opened at Green Acres Commons in Valley Stream, NY – a center that already hosted budget-friendly BJ’s Wholesale Club. While BJ’s visits were relatively flat in 2018 and 2019, they began to rise after Aldi’s opening (and following a pandemic-induced dip). Cross-shopping data also shows that Aldi customers were more likely to visit BJ’s than the average Green Acres patron last year.
This synergy may be due in part to the two retailers’ similar visitor bases: In 2024, the Aldi and BJ’s stores in Green Acres Common drew shoppers with comparable economic profiles. This suggests that overlapping audiences can become a strength if aligned brands attract new shoppers, who then explore multiple stores in the same center.
Visits to Green Acres Commons BJ's Wholesale Club, Compared to Q1 2018 Baseline
Median HHI, 2024*
Cross-Shopping, 2024
*Median HHI based on STI: PopStats dataset combined with Placer.ai data for captured trade areas.
Looking ahead, effective mall anchors will be defined less by physical footprint and more by their capacity to maintain consistent, valuable foot traffic. While traditional department stores remain pivotal, smaller or niche brands can often rival – or surpass – large-format retailers. And by thinking out of the anchor box and choosing tenants that cultivate a balanced visitor flow and align with local preferences, operators can position their centers as true go-to destinations.
